Anyone Else Getting Sent on Losing Streaks All of a Sudden?

[Breezy]

Starting a week or two ago, my win rate in ranked was consistently 50% or higher. Now it's hovering around 40% and below and I honestly don't know what's going on. I've seen some other people having similar issues but I don't know how widespread it is. I'm certain it's at least in part due to the matchmaking because I've been placed in matches where I lose very little power from a loss, but it's happening over and over again in rapid succession. I've also seen that the latency has been bumped up several notches in many matches and it's very noticeable. I'm suspicious it's the result of the recent server maintenance; they may have tampered with the netcode either by mistake or on purpose. All I know is that it's actively ruining the game for me and I want to know if anyone else is feeling this.

 

[techton]

I quit Ranked a while ago entirely because it was getting me nowhere. Never got past A+ in all gamemodes, but yes, my experience is similar to yours. My win-rate last time I calculated was ~23%.

I really, really wish they could put "more content" off to the side and focus on matchmaking improvements, because it's pretty bad where it stands right now, if not worse than Splatoon 1's matchmaking system.

 

[Breezy]

That's something that really baffles me actually. These problems are not subtle which means either they're not paying attention, they can't fix it, or they won't fix it. I mean come on, the very point of ranked is to pit you against players of your skill level, so if your winrate isn't around 50% most of the time, the game failed. You can have bad days, but this clearly goes beyond that.

 

[Gameboy224]

The answer is no.

No matter what you think, or how things have been going. There's nothing that would really intentionally sway your pull of teams or not.

Assuming your sig is accurate, you're in X rank. The game will naturally pull people generally in the same power level as you. That's really all the game can do, whether or not they perform up to stuff is up to human error, not the game.

So in short, honestly, you're probably just getting some rotten luck. Such is life.

 

[RocketsTail]

Yes....but then it’ll shift back to a winning streak. I notice that ranked is worse on weekends and especially now that people are on summer break. More casual ranked players come out during these times, throwing off a lot of my matches. It’s not something I just noticed, but others on Twitch have noticed the same too. Oh and new stages and weapons also make ranked matches even worse since people aren’t familiar enough with the stage yet or they’re playing weapons they aren’t used to playing. Instead of doing recon or turf, they’d rather “test” them in ranked.

 

[OctoKid]

I often play very late at night and consistently get better players than I do during the daytime.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

Yes....but then it’ll shift back to a winning streak. I notice that ranked is worse on weekends and especially now that people are on summer break. More casual ranked players come out during these times, throwing off a lot of my matches. It’s not something I just noticed, but others on Twitch have noticed the same too. Oh and new stages and weapons also make ranked matches even worse since people aren’t familiar enough with the stage yet or they’re playing weapons they aren’t used to playing. Instead of doing recon or turf, they’d rather “test” them in ranked.

A lot of this.

Ranked seems worse during the day time since summer break started -- similar to how bad it is during after school hours through early evening.

On top of that, where the game fails us is in weapon comps. They don't let us pick our weapons while being able to see what our teammates picked, but they also throw people together randomly without any regard to comp.

Part of the charm of ranked is the chaos, but this goes too far.

 

[Breezy]

So in short, honestly, you're probably just getting some rotten luck. Such is life.

I'm sorry but I disagree. It's not simply winning or losing streaks that happen, it's the game putting teams together where the power level of one outweighs the power level of the other, and it does so multiple times in a row. You can tell based on how much power you gain or lose at the end of a match. It's based on the probability of victory; if the game knows your team was likely to lose that game and you do, you will not lose very much power. If this is quantifiable, then I can only assume it's somewhat deterministic, because nothing is forcing the game to make teams where one is significantly more likely to lose than the other; it's a conscious choice of the code. So when that happens over and over in a row to my benefit or detriment, I don't think it's luck at that point.

 

[Gameboy224]

I'm sorry but I disagree. It's not simply winning or losing streaks that happen, it's the game putting teams together where the power level of one outweighs the power level of the other, and it does so multiple times in a row. You can tell based on how much power you gain or lose at the end of a match. It's based on the probability of victory; if the game knows your team was likely to lose that game and you do, you will not lose very much power. If this is quantifiable, then I can only assume it's somewhat deterministic, because nothing is forcing the game to make teams where one is significantly more likely to lose than the other; it's a conscious choice of the code. So when that happens over and over in a row to my benefit or detriment, I don't think it's luck at that point.

In a perfect world, all matches would be of teams with an equal average power level, but this isn't a perfect world. When rallying 8 people up, the game can probably do what it can to try and even out the playing field as much as possible, but differences in average power in inevitable. Factors such as current players in queue and whatnot. But you aren't normally gonna see matches like a team fresh on the border of X with an average of 1800-1900 power go against a team of top 500 players that are 2400+, it just isn't likely to happen.

You said your win:lose rate is hovering around 40:60. That isn't remotely abnormal for a relatively short span of time.

 

[Breezy]

But you aren't normally gonna see matches like a team fresh on the border of X with an average of 1800-1900 power go against a team of top 500 players that are 2400+, it just isn't likely to happen.

You said your win:lose rate is hovering around 40:60. That isn't remotely abnormal for a relatively short span of time.

You're correct in that the extreme case you presented is not likely to happen, but it does not take that wide a power gap to result in a stomp, probably no more than a 100-200, which absolutely happens often. The game knows if a stomp is likely to occur otherwise there would not be situations where the winning team gains less than 1 power point. If the game was that sure the team that won was going to win, that match had no business happening. The game has a finite pool of people to pull from, yes, but which parameters it considers when making a match are controllable, and nothing but the time limit that the devs set and the player pool is forcing it to make a match with unbalanced teams. I would gladly accept a longer queue time (up to a point) if it meant a cleaner matchmaking experience. Not to mention, there are many scenarios when the game makes the same match with the same people twice in a row when a stomp occurred the first time, places all the shiny/top 500 people on one team multiple times in a row, etc, so I have a very hard time accepting that it's not either deliberate or a code deficiency.

My win rate was less than 40% over the span of multiple play sessions. It's rising now but the amount of time it was that low was anomalous for me, and I've been playing since launch.

 

[MINKUKEL]

Winning streak? It must be me!
Losing streak? It must be the matchmaking!

Ranks and power levels don't mean everything either. You should see some of the crap rank X players pull in SR.

If you play with the same person(s) for a long time in a lobby, you'll see that they are in your team and the opponent's team about 50/50 of the time. The game isn't trying to secretly intervene with the matches, it's just trying to lead to some variety. And yes, sometimes you'll play with or against the same person a lot. That's how chance works.

On top of that, where the game fails us is in weapon comps. They don't let us pick our weapons while being able to see what our teammates picked, but they also throw people together randomly without any regard to comp.

How would that even be implemented? If you can see people's weapons change in real time as they're switching, what you're gonna get is people waiting as long as possible so they can pick the most advantageous weapon.

 

[Breezy]

Winning streak? It must be me!
Losing streak? It must be the matchmaking!

Except I notice when my winning streaks aren't because of me either, and it's not hard to tell because my power/meter gains are minimal over many matches in a row. I, like many others I've seen, tend to win/lose matches in runs that fluctuate abruptly even within the same play session. The very point of ranked is to pit you against players of your own skill level, so when your rank is stable, streaks should not happen frequently, win or lose. People can have particularly good or bad days and that can explain streaks at times, but the trend is too consistent to be explained by that and luck alone. I understand the implementation can never be perfect, but it should be a lot better than this.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

How would that even be implemented? If you can see people's weapons change in real time as they're switching, what you're gonna get is people waiting as long as possible so they can pick the most advantageous weapon.

1. That would still be better.
2. Other shooters handle seeing your teammates’ weapons/characters just fine. Splatoon is the outlier here.
3. Since you asked, my idea is that you equip three possible weapons (sort of like how you equip different arms in Armzzzzzzz) that you can choose from at the start of the match.

The twist here that I’d add to it is each person chooses their weapon one by one. I’d do it so the person with the worst power level chooses first and best power level chooses last. Could be fun. You can still pick whatever you want, but at least the OPTION to pick a different gun that works better in the comp is there.

Also, I feel like you are under the impression that you get to see the other team’s weapons too. Of course not. Only your team’s.

 

[techton]

The game will naturally pull people generally in the same power level as you. That's really all the game can do,

I... disagree. There are so many other things that can make the matchmaking better. Player level balancing across teams, same with weapon balancing (or as balanced as it can be, so nothing like purely Squelchers vs. Inkbrushes.), rank increase amount based on pure performance (splat counts, use of special when and where, team support, amount of time spent doing the objective like riding the tower, etc.) so those that do bad yet still win a lot don't get a big increase in power at all, really anything like this can be proposed to improve matchmaking.
Sure, like you said, it can't be perfect, but it can be improved.

The way the game pulls you down to players who also went on losing streaks doesn't help that much either, because when I go on losing streaks, they last like, sometimes over 10 matches, so I'll often get dragged down so far in power that I'll just be matched with players that are just plain bad, not those that are just having an unlucky day. How these losing streaks start is when I'm matched with players who got carried up the ranks.

As of now in Turf, I'm being matched with lots of players who haven't even reached level 10 yet as a result of losing so much, and yet my win-rate is still below 50%.

Man, this game can be so brutal that it can sometimes break me.

3. Since you asked, my idea is that you equip three possible weapons (sort of like how you equip different arms in Armzzzzzzz) that you can choose from at the start of the match.

This.

 

[Gameboy224]

I... disagree. There are so many other things that can make the matchmaking better. Player level balancing across teams, same with weapon balancing (or as balanced as it can be, so nothing like purely Squelchers vs. Inkbrushes.), rank increase amount based on pure performance (splat counts, use of special when and where, team support, amount of time spent doing the objective like riding the tower, etc.) so those that do bad yet still win a lot don't get a big increase in power at all, really anything like this can be proposed to improve matchmaking.
Sure, like you said, it can't be perfect, but it can be improved.

The way the game pulls you down to players who also went on losing streaks doesn't help that much either, because when I go on losing streaks, they last like, sometimes over 10 matches, so I'll often get dragged down so far in power that I'll just be matched with players that are just plain bad, not those that are just having an unlucky day. How these losing streaks start is when I'm matched with players who got carried up the ranks.

As of now in Turf, I'm being matched with lots of players who haven't even reached level 10 yet as a result of losing so much, and yet my win-rate is still below 50%.

Man, this game can be so brutal that it can sometimes break me.

Level is an irrelevant factor. While certainly a player that is still in the single digits or teens is likely to be a newbie, that doesn't mean they are. Even then, level means near nothing once people have passed level 30, at that point, regardless of you're level, you're equally good or equally garbage compared to the next guy over. Hence the existence of the power system.

Weapon, I can understand. Nothing is quite as annoying than being on a team with only Aerosprays and Inkbrushes. But to what metric would you determine this? Each weapons performs differently, just cause a weapon has more range doesn't mean a weapon with less can't easily outplay it, different weapons have different advantages and disadvantages in different modes. To a degree, a player's competency with a weapon throws more chips into the field than the weapon itself.

Not to sound mean, but you're only in A+. You're still well within the area where the good play of a single person can easily make a match. I know, I was that person, especially in Tower Control. Don't blame your teammates, blame yourself for not rising to the occasion and being a cut above the rest. Well, you can blame your team a bit, but it's your job to better yourself and bend fate in your favor.

As for Turf Wars. I don't share your dilemma. Yes, I too will occasionally run into some fresh meat, but Turf Wars does use a hidden power system to gauge which player's it will typically match you up with.

 

[Misas]

A lot of my losses have been because one of my team mates disconnects every game

 

[MINKUKEL]

3. Since you asked, my idea is that you equip three possible weapons (sort of like how you equip different arms in Armzzzzzzz) that you can choose from at the start of the match.

Yeah, that'd work.

I’d do it so the person with the worst power level chooses first and best power level chooses last.

Though I don't think this is a great idea. I'd make the order random and make the whole team choose at the same time (but you can see your teammates change them in real time).

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

Yeah, that'd work.

Though I don't think this is a great idea. I'd make the order random and make the whole team choose at the same time (but you can see your teammates change them in real time).

I’d be okay with that too. Basically how 4P league and private battles it now?

 

[Mr Hemulen]

I quit Ranked a while ago entirely because it was getting me nowhere. Never got past A+ in all gamemodes, but yes, my experience is similar to yours. My win-rate last time I calculated was ~23%.

The matchmaking isn't the best but you aren't genuinely convinced the dominant factor in your lack of progress is the matchmaking right?

 

[MINKUKEL]

I’d be okay with that too. Basically how 4P league and private battles it now?

I have literally never touched those in my life, so I don't know.